After Graduation

So, last week was graduation. The ninth graders are out of here – they all got into their high schools of choice, which is good. The school is pretty quiet without them. Why am I still at school, you ask? Graduation apparently does not mean the end of the year.

For two weeks after the ninth graders graduate, the 7th and 8th graders still have classes. This makes no sense. Then there’s a week off, and then its back to school. Weird. I don’t like it. School years should not be separated by a mere week. There’s something brilliant about a summer vacation. Done in June – return in September. Each year feels distinct – with a clear ending and a true beginning. Can you imagine if, when you graduated from elementary or middle school, you only had a week before you had to go to your new school? Welcome to the Asian school system.

Oh, there’s a summer break. But it’s hardly a vacation. The kids still come into school everyday, but instead of classes they do their club activities. No one ever gets a long break. The longest is a week at a time. The kids are never out of school for very long – even during the day. They get here at 7:30, and, now that the days are getting longer, they stay until six. Six! The system is designed so that the kids have no lives outside of school. They even come in on Saturdays for club activities. In the West, you go to school, do your schoolwork, then go home. The process is streamlined. School just feels like one part of your life – not the whole thing.

I don’t know why anyone would want to be a teacher in this country. The pay is relatively low and the hours are insane. The kids are frequently in school for over ten hours but the teachers stay even longer. Many times it ends up being a twelve-hour day. Do they have so much work? No. But the culture dictates that everyone come in and look busy for the better part of the day. Oh, I forgot to mention that there’s no such thing as tenure, and teachers are moved from school to school approximately every 3 or 4 years. These changes are made during spring break. This year, spring break starts on Wednesday the 26th. The teachers will be told by the Board of Education if they are being moved on the 25th. Then, they will have the week of spring break to move themselves to a new school. What if you get moved across the prefecture, a one-and-a-half hour’s drive away? Sometimes this requires uprooting your family. Other times it requires getting an apartment near your new school and living there six days out of the week (if you’re at school for 12 hours a day, you can’t afford another 3 hours of commuting time). The whole thing is crazy.

Ugh, the teachers are about to have a meeting. Who knows when they’ll be done? I think, last time, the meeting lasted until 7 (its 3:30 now). Why do they have these meetings? Many of the teachers have admitted to me that the meetings are pointless – just a forum for the vice principal to ramble endlessly. I mean, he’s an expert on so many diverse topics (photography, astronomy, carpentry, the dangers of the yakuza, the city of Miami, big-band jazz, coffee, etc.). Why wouldn’t you want to listen to him for hours?